This invention relates generally to aircraft engine harnesses and, more particularly, to modeling systems used to model aircraft engine harnesses.
Aircraft engines typically include a plurality of wiring harnesses used to electrically couple a plurality of engine components. Each harness includes a plurality of connectors electrically coupled with a plurality of wire cables. The harnesses typically include a plurality of wire cable branches extending in various angles and directions from a central wire cable.
During an initial assembly of an aircraft engine, an engine mock-up is utilized to determine how each wiring harness should be routed across the engine. More specifically, rope is often routed across the engine to simulate the wiring harness and to produce a template of each wiring harness.
Once the desired assembled condition for each wiring harness is determined, each wiring harness is physically untwisted and measured to determine an unfolded state. After the unfolded state of each wiring harness is determined, drawings are generated for manufacturing and inspection. Because of the complexity of the aircraft engines, the harnesses are often complex, and the process of determining an unfolded state for each of the wiring harnesses may be a time-consuming, challenging, and laborious task, and may not yield accurate results.